Editorial: Changing the conversation about our future

Tarrelle Johnson, 27, left, Josh Walker, 25, center, and Nick Dedominicis, 24, on the tree, work to remove a tree that fell on Donna Gomes' home in North Naples Thursday, Sept. 14, 2017. The trio work for Elite Treehouse, a company based in Canton, Georgia, which was contracted to help clean up the Landmark Naples neighborhood. "We realized how much destruction was down here and wanted to help out," Walker said.(Photo: Annika Hammerschlag/Naples Daily)

The conversation about what’s important in Collier County’s and Florida’s future is much different today than what we expected going into the final quarter of 2017.

It’s much different than it was 10 days ago.

The list of weighty subjects that were coming before the Collier County Commission alone, not to mention various other local government boards, in the last few months of 2017 had future-changing potential.

The state is about to ramp up for a 2018 legislative session in January, earlier than usual because it’s an election year. There are bills to file and a 2018-19 budget to assemble that typically factors revenue projections, which now could be affected by the storm.

Today, our recovery and rebuilding from Hurricane Irma is the focus. That’s not just here in Southwest Florida, but across much of the state.

Irma effect

The cumulative extent of damages the hurricane caused from Key West up through Southwest Florida – then points north along the peninsula – remain relatively unknown and could change the conversation proportionately.

Consider just one linchpin industry for the state – tourism. We know from past storms and disasters how visitation suffers when there are lingering images of afflicted destinations. That could affect state and local government budgets through reduced revenue.

Thirdly, there’s construction. In recent months we’ve learned that rising prices for materials and a shortage of labor already had driven up the projected cost of Bonita Springs High School by 19.7 percent. Now, there’s a lot of reconstruction to come; the laws of supply and demand are sure to play a role.

Before and after

Here are some of the issues we had expected to dominate the conversation the last quarter of 2017, versus now:

+ Housing prices. A community housing plan was to be presented to Collier commissioners this fall, honing in on recommendations made during a review by the Urban Land Institute earlier this year. The availability of housing in general and the price points for sale of that stock is different now. With hurricanes Irma and Wilma, we’ve seen significant storm damage strike Immokalee; Irma has affected available housing there. Damages have been reported in some Naples-area apartment complexes; rental units already were hard to come by.

+ Infrastructure. County government staff had been exploring how to pay for needed infrastructure after the suggestion arose that a local-option sales tax might raise the necessary money rather than property taxes. The need for more east-west roads, replacements for bridges built more than 50 years ago, housing, job-training centers and such projects were among the suggested beneficiaries. This wouldn’t go into effect until after a referendum more than a year from now – if it were to be approved by voters – so perhaps this isn’t such an immediate focus now.

+ Similarly, there were conversations about whether to schedule a referendum in 2018 to reinstate the Conservation Collier property tax. That’s more than a year away and ballot-related decisions no longer seem as pressing.

+ Beaches. A long-term project to raise the level of the beach and widen it to better protect our coastline from storm surge was visionary. Such projects are based on bed taxes collected from hotel stays and short-term rentals. Commissioners this summer agreed to put more money into beaches at the expense of tourism marketing. When the area emerges from its Hurricane Irma recovery, there will be messages to deliver to potential tourists in the U.S. and abroad that we’re open for business. More immediately, we don’t know what erosion Irma caused.

+ Stormwater. Questions were raised about whether Collier government needs to create a stormwater utility with a dedicated funding source. Bonita Springs City Council discussed whether to explore one as well. The city of Naples is decades ahead of other local governments on this. Irma’s rain and flood waters are persuasive.